Took the Trident in for an MOT this morning at Hertfordshire Triumph in Hemel Hempstead. Fantastic dealers by the way. They also stock Moto Guzzi, Aprilia and Piaggio plus all the usual range of clothing and accessories. Oh and very nice free coffee, which always hits the spot with me

Bike sailed through the MOT I'm happy to say. Only slight downer was the battery was completely flat when I went to start it. Have a feeling it's time for a new one although it had been charging on an Optimate 4 for five days so there is the niggling possibility it could be something else but I reckon this is the original battery and although the bike has only done 21k it is over 18 years old so....yeah could be the battery. One of the techs came out and used one of those portable battery packs to start it. Bike fired up straight away so can't be much wrong with it

Anyway, whilst I was waiting on the MOT...they will do it while you wait and most times you don't need to book so that's good...I spotted the new Triumph 1200 Explorer sitting outside in the wonderful Spring sunshine. Up to now I had been leaning toward getting a BMW and I do REALLY like beemers but, this Triumph 1200 gave me pause for thought. You see unlike nearly all other Triumphs with the exception of the monstrous Rocket III, this particular beastie has shaft drive!

Now I hate chains with a passion! They are messy, require constant adjustment and rarely last 20k. They also cost a fortune to replace and in the case of my Trident 900 Sprint, you also have to remove the swinging arm to replace it. Now that's one heck of a lot of faffing about right? With a shaft on the other hand, there really is no maintenance apart from changing the oil every couple of years. So no nasty sticky black stuff all over your rear wheel, no adjusting and no £120 a time to replace. Still, nice as all that is, this thing still costs around £11,500 and that's without the extras! That's no small chunk of change but, as one of the Triumph guys rightly pointed out. This is not the sort of bike you buy with the aim of selling in 6 months time. The Explorer is built to take you places...a lot of places and for a long period of time. Don't you just love how a salesman can make you think that buying a bike that costs more than ten times what my Trident did is all very good sense?

I am sorely tempted to book a test ride but then I know I will be driving myself nuts trying to figure out how to finance this new bike I "just have to have!"

Anyway, if your ever in the Hemel Hempstead area it's well worth it to pop into Hertfordshire Triumph and take a look at what they have to offer

By the way. It was a fantastic ride there and back. Sun was shining, temps are up and the roads are dry. Perfect biking weather at last

Ouch! A lot of money but a lot of Bike. Did I read somewhere that Triumph now build some of their bike / parts in India? That place is thriving for motorcycle manufacturing and sales!

Did some work on the Yam yesterday - my first free weekend since October, basically, so replaced the front screen with something that is smaller than the windsail it had; just big enough to catch flies and keet the worse of the wind off. Only trouble with the smaller screen is the increase in wind noise.

I also replaced the rear carrier with one that does not have a sissy bar - I wanted to fit a top box for when I use it for short runs - somewhere to keep the helmet when parked. I thought about angle grinding the sisy bar off, but the rear carrier seemed to be too high anyway. A new carrier was the answer.

I bought the carrier from louis.de (www.louis.de) in Germany, their catalog (thicker than Argos!) is in German, but the website is in German and English. The prices are really good and shipping is very very reasonable. They have an amazing selection of clothing and parts / accessories. Best I have ever seen.

After the fitting, refitting, tweaking and replacing a lot of screws with stainless hex bolts (eBay £18 for 200 assorted) I went for a nice 40 mile trip to a distant Halfords to get a set of hex spanners. Do you know? Halfords only sell Imperial hex keys, not metric! Weird or what? Anyway, the sun was out, a nice steady 55 / 60 cruise and hardly any traffic - it was so pleasant!

Off to eBay to get the hex keys - support your local store where you can - but come on Halfords, get real!

Great to hear you had a free weekend at last Jeff. I get the feeling those are far and few between?

Yeah it's too much money for me right now. Would love one but then I still think I would probably go for a BMW 1200GS. At low speeds two up the Trident is a bit of a handful. It's too top heavy and given that the Explorer has what is in effect the same engine only more refined and bigger capacity I have a feeling it might be similar in this respect. The BMW on the other hand has a very low center of gravity and is a delight at low or high speed. In any case, I can get a much cheaper used BMW with shaft drive but there is no cheaper shaft drive Triumph so game over in favor of BMW I think

Will be putting the Trident up for sale today or tomorrow. It's a great bike. Handles superbly, plenty of power and rock solid at high speed but that forward leaning riding position is just not for me. Maybe I am getting older but I prefer a much more upright riding position. It takes the weight off the wrists and that reduces the effects of any vibration coming through the bars. By the way, how is the vibration on your Yam?

Can't believe Halfords don't do metric hex keys! Ten years ago that may have been ok but in 2012? really? I think I bought mine from Maplins. They have a store just down from Halfords in Stevenage so it's easy to get some things at Halfords and others at Maplins

Well best get out there. Funny enough we are heading to Halfords. Only to get some valeting stuff for the bike. It will be far cleaner for the next buyer than it was for me that's for sure